As You Were
by BlueDaze
Summary: You know what they say...life's full of surprises
1. Default Chapter

Title: As You Were

Author: BlueDaze

Distribution: Cover Me

Rating: PG 13 (for some badness)

Summary: You know what they say…life's full of surprises.

Vaughn could not really remember what he had been doing before the sleeping gas had seeped in through the air vents. Probably working on his computer. Probably thinking that he was going to have that drink with Weiss after all.

But it was more likely than not that he was wondering if Sydney Bristow was still alive.

You see, she had been missing for, oh, going on three months. Three months and twenty-nine days, if he was going to be anal about it.

Bottom line is that she was gone. No one knew how or why, only that her car had been found abandoned on the side of highway 180. They were unable to tell if she put up a fight.

It could have been SD6. It could have been the DSR. For all they knew, she could've been abducted by extraterrestrials or that she had decided to drop this life like a hot potato and run away in search of something better. Something real, as she had mentioned to Vaughn so many times before. 

Vaughn had interrogated the hell out of Jack, pressing him for any information no matter how scant. But her father knew nothing. Just that she was gone and…her desk at SD6 had been cleared. Sloane had given up all hope of finding her as well.

Her and Sark. It seemed that the night she vanished, was also the same night Sark had disappeared as well. It was everyone's suspicion at SD6 that the two had eloped or some other bullshit explanation like that. The thought made Vaughn's stomach turn. He (thought he) knew that Sydney would never do a thing like that. 

Because what they had was special. 

Kendall said that Sydney was a clever girl. It would not take a whole lot of effort on her part just to fake her own death. And if she was that desperate to leave this life what were the chances that she wasn't going to try?

Vaughn didn't listen at first. He used up every resource he had to find her but it all resulted in more than dead ends. Sydney seemed to have gone out for milk one day and never returned. 

Said three months had passed. Weiss, in his most tactful way, was bugging him to just move on. Dead or alive, he told Vaughn, she has to be in a better place. 

Vaughn didn't believe him. For all he knew she was being tortured in a Korean prison or in the nether regions of SD6.

But there were other reasons.

 Vaughn didn't believe him because he missed Sydney. Vaughn didn't believe him because of the small part of him that still needed Sydney Bristow beside him. 

Michael didn't believe him because Sydney's smile still haunted his dreams.

_I promised her a hockey game._

_I told her that it would all be over someday._

That was what he had been thinking before the sleeping gas hit him.

Vaughn came to. His vision was stinging and blurry. He groaned when he felt waves of nausea crash over him. Jesus, was he hung over? He couldn't remember a whole lot except…hey, hadn't he and Weiss been talking about getting drunk afterwards?  Maybe all this was just the evil after effects of binge drinking gone horribly awry. It wouldn't be the first time.

But then he remembered hitting the floor of the operations center.

Vaughn sat up-or at least tried to. "Shit," he muttered after realizing that his hands were tied. He looked around and groaned again.

The entire CIA operations center was in the same predicament as he was. Everyone, including Weiss, Jack, and Kendall, was bound and shaking off the effects of the drug. Something caught the corner of his eye and he managed to twist his body toward Irina. She, too, was tied up. She caught his glance and her stare said it all: can't blame me for this one. 

"What the hell is going on?" Weiss said. 

"We appear to be held hostage," Kendall said, furious. He looked at Vaughn as if to blame him for the latest disaster. Vaughn glared back. 

"By who?" Jack demanded.

As if to answer that question, Gerard Cuvee strolled into the room. Irina let out venomous hiss. 

"You." 

Cuvee made a sound with his tongue. "My, my Irina. All this time you had me believing that you were a free woman. And it turns out that you were servicing the CIA." He gave a disgustingly knowing smirk. "I guess some things never change."

Irina didn't blink at this blatant insult to her dignity but Jack looked enraged enough to kill. 

"Why?" she asked, simply. Cuvee shrugged. "Why not?'

"You see, the Agency has something I need back." 

"Rambaldi's flower."

Cuvee nodded in the affirmative. Irina smiled. "Go to Hell, darling," she said, sweetly. "You're never going to get it."

Cuvee grabbed a fistful of Irina's hair and pulled her to him. It looked as though he was going to strike her. Instead his mouth twisted into hard smile. "We'll see," he sneered. And then he kissed her, so severely that it hurt. 

Irina twisted her head away and somehow managed to head-butt him. He let out a yell and staggered back. She said something in Russian-a curse, probably- and with contempt, spit where he had been standing. 

Cuvee rubbed his forehead and for a minute it really did look as though he were going to hit her. Instead he laughed. "I'm sure you'll come around, Irina." He paused before going on, a look of growing triumph on his face. "After all, your employee did." The look of confusion on her face amused him. "You didn't think I came alone did you?"

They all heard a loud click.

Sark stood in the entrance of the rotunda, hefting a large machine gun, sliding its safety back. He glanced up and grinned at their prisoners. "Hello Irina. Long time, no see."

"We are so screwed," Weiss said, pointlessly. Vaughn found it hard to disagree.

Sark walked forward, still toting the firearm. Vaughn recalled what Sydney had told him once. 

_With __Sark__, it's usually shoot now, shoot again, shoot some cows along the way and that's just the warm up. He's not the guy you go to for a fair fight._

Screwed seemed to sum up their situation.

"So this is where you've been hiding yourself the entire time," Sark commented. "I have to say… I expected better accommodations." 

"Nathaniel," she whispered. She looked genuinely hurt to see that he and Cuvee were conspiring together. "How-"

"Still, I had my suspicions," Sark told her as though he didn't hear her. "You had left in such a rush…" Suddenly, he dropped his light demeanor. He looked lost and wounded by her betrayal. He carefully leveled his machine gun at her. "You left me. You just left me, Irina, all by myself and I had to go to SD6, to that bastard Sloane…"

"How is Sloane by the way?" Sark asked, his tone becoming casual once again. "I realize that I left without leaving any notice. I hope he was not too upset." 

Jack stared at Sark for a long moment. "No. I think he took your disappearance quite well. Perhaps he may have even been a bit relieved." 

Sark smiled. "Good to hear. Please give him my regards whenever you should see him again." Vaughn noticed Jack glance at the machine gun and knew that he was indeed wondering if he would survive to see Sloane.

Jack started to speak again. "I believe Arvin was more distressed about Sydney's disappearance than he was about yours." Sark gave him a pointed look. Jack swallowed. "You-you wouldn't happen to know about that. Would you?"

Sark's eyes glazed over. He lowered his gun, remembering. Vaughn knew that if his hands were not tied, he could've taken Sark.

"Sydney…she's gone." He sounded sad about it. He was silent for a moment. Blood thundered in Vaughn's brain.

"She was at the bluffs, wasn't she? She was waiting for someone, someone to come-but he never did. She was very close to the edge…" Sark grinned, an angelic demon.

"Did you kill her?" Vaughn didn't even realize that he had spoken until the words left his dry mouth. 

Sark gave a dreaming smile. "I saw her fall. That's all I know." He looked lost once more. "It's all I remember."

Vaughn wasn't sure but he thought he heard Irina sob. In that moment, he knew that he had to survive this. He had to live.

He still had to kill Sark.

Weiss was staring at him, warning him with his eyes not to try anything that would result in suicide. Everyone else in the rotunda was silent, either too petrified to speak or too fascinated by the exchange already taking place.

"Well, now that we have reintroduced ourselves," Cuvee announced, apparently bored with the heightening tension in the room, "Why don't you direct me to your operations lab?"

"Won't do any good," Jack said, almost snarling. "It's already been destroyed."

Cuvee whipped around. "That's a lie," he said, hissing.

"No, it really isn't," Jack said, without pity. 

"You destroyed a Rambaldi artifact?"

"You destroyed my family; seemed only fair."

From the look on Cuvee's face, Vaughn was grateful that Sark was the one holding the gun. Nothing would have restrained Cuvee from blasting Jack into oblivion.

On the other hand, Sark was completely unhinged…

Vaughn risked a look at Sark and saw that the destruction of the flower did nothing to faze him. In fact he seemed almost amused that Cuvee seemed on the verge of losing it.

"Well, there goes your plans, huh boss?" Sark said cheerily. "Let's call it a day-"

"Wait," Cuvee commanded. He eyed Jack for a moment. "You must have discovered something in the short time the flower was in your possession. You must have figured our how to use it somehow…"

"Give me your gun," he told Sark.

He sighed, exasperated. "I don't see how that's going to solve anything."

Cuvee snatched the firearm away from Sark. Within moments, he had it aimed at Jack's forehead. 

"Tell me what you know," he barked. Jack kept his silent defiance. 

"TELL ME!" Cuvee screamed, practically foaming at the mouth. 

Jack looked at him, his eyes slowly darkening. "Fuck you."

Cuvee let out freakishly inhuman scream. It echoed around the rotunda and everyone knew that Jack Bristow was dead man. Cuvee's finger tightened on the trigger.

"Wait." It was soft, almost imperceptible request. Cuvee looked at Irina who had just spoken. Her deep brown eyes were pleading. 

She never resembled Sydney more than she did in that moment.

"The CIA lab managed to extract fluids from the flower that may hold the key to Rambaldi's endless life. CIA has someone from the Office of Scientific and Weapons Research analyzing it. It's not here."

At this, Cuvee seemed to have calmed down. "Is that a fact?"

He looked at Jack, as though still deciding whether to kill him or not. "Only a senior officer can gain access to the lab," Irina mentioned.

"And where is this lab?"

"It's far…but I can show you. He told me where it was." 

Cuvee scrutinized Irina, trying to uncover any hidden motives. Finally, he smiled satisfied. "You always manage to surprise me, Irina."

"Sark, we're leaving. Ms. Derevko is going to show us where the lab is." He swung the machine gun at Jack. "And her husband is going to grant us access." Jack's only response was a cold glare. "Until we leave, I don't want one hostage breaking loose. I am going to notify the others."

With that he tossed Sark the machine gun and left the room.

Irina looked at Sark for a long while, the hurt taking it's time to sink in. "Why Nathaniel?" she asked, sad.

Sark took the time to ponder the gravity of the question. "It's not like any of us have a choice here, Irina. It's not like any of us ever did."

"Did you really kill Sydney?"

"She's gone. That's all you have to know," he replied. 

She shook her head, as though still unable to process what was happening. "I don't understand- how can you do such a thing?"

He shrugged. "You know what they say…life's full of surprises."

A musical laugh rang across the room. Everyone started at the sound, unnerved by its gaiety.  Vaughn followed the sound to the entrance of the rotunda, his body automatically bracing him for the worst.

When he saw the figure standing there, he knew the worst had arrived.

Sydney Bristow stood there, half –obscured by shadow, but there was no mistaking her eyes…which were shining with teasing mischief. It was a look he had seen before but at the moment it could not have looked more alien.

She strolled toward Sark, her hands clasped behind her back, deceptively sweet. It was as if she were daring the others to guess what she had hidden. 

"Life's boring," she told him, her voice sing-songy. Sark laughed and reached out to embrace her. She cupped his face affectionately. "We're full of surprises."

She looked back at the others and grinned, madly. 

"Hey Mom. Hey Dad. It's been a long time." Suddenly, her eyes began to glow with a predatory light. "Did you miss me?"


	2. mnemosyne

As You Were 

Pt. II: Mnemosyne

"Mmmm…" Sydney murmured, letting her head rest against Sark's shoulder. "Look at all the pretty toys." Her eyes roamed lazily over the captives. She licked her lips and looked up at Sark. "Which one's mine?"

He gave her an indulgent smile. "Whichever one you want." He stroked her hair. "You are the birthday girl."

She let out a wild whoop of laughter which resounded throughout the operations center and sent chills through Vaughn's blood. This couldn't possibly be Sydney. It was a trick, an act…

"Holy shit." Was that Weiss or Jack? Hell, what did it even matter anymore.

Sydney pulled herself away from Sark and surveyed her surroundings as though she had never been there before. Sark watched her, fondness shining clear through his eyes. She seemed to be looking at everything except the hostages; in her perspective they did not exist. 

Vaughn's eyes never left her wandering form. Slowly, he became aware of the painful pangs going off within him. So much time had passed and the only thing he wanted desired was finally returned to him…

Except it wasn't her, was it?

Same person but different, so very different. Her doe-like brown eyes took in everything for the first time. Her hair was longer and was a darker shade of brown, almost black. Vaughn numbly realized why she looked so different. Bangs had been cut in a blunt fashion across her forehead and her complexion was paler cream than he was used to. Everything about her appearance seemed to be overlaid with an icy sheen.

She drifted toward his work area and the ache inside him grew. A small frown appeared on her lips and he remembered how endearing she always looked whenever she was puzzled. She picked up a gold coin and held it between her fingers, watching the light bounce off of it.

_How do you believe in something that isn't even real, Vaughn?_

Sydney dropped the coin as though the metallic surface had scorched her flesh. It fell with a soft clang. 

"I don't like it here," she announced. She went back to Sark. "It feels like a cemetery." 

"We won't be here long, Sydney," Sark told her. "We'll leave as soon as we get what we came here for." He seemed bored with the entire hostage situation. 

"Won't matter." She gave a weary sigh. "None of it matters." 

Jack managed to croak out "Sydney?" She turned to him, the expression on her face polite and curious. She clasped her hands before her. 

"What is it Daddy?" Very sweet, painfully sweet.

He swallowed hard. He was struggling to find the words that would very well fix all of this. No such words existed.

So he took what was closer to his tongue. "What happened to you?" 

She appeared puzzled by his line of questioning. "What do you mean?" Then she smiled with innocent pride. "Oh don't worry about me. It was all bad for awhile-"her smile widened "-but they fixed me."

Vaughn repressed a gag. "They?" Irina asked. "Who's they?"

Sydney frowned, pensive. Then the sweetness returned to her face, and she was once more playful and evasive. She leaned forward and put her finger to her lips. "Shhh," she purred. "It's a secret." She winked and pivoted away, full of giggles.

It looked to everybody as though she had reverted back to a child state of mind. Vaughn ran through all the psychological reasons for this and with a sinking heart came to the most obvious conclusion. Sydney was insane.

Irina hesitated. "Do you know who we are, Sydney?" Sydney let out a silvery peal of laughter. 

"Of course I do. You're my mother and he's my father and you're both tied up so you can't punish me." She looked proud of her logic.

"Oh Sydney." Irina sounded robbed of hope. She bowed her head down and her daughter reached over and lifted her chin in a bizarre mother-daughter role reversal. Something passed over her eyes. Bewildered by what she was doing, she backed away.

"We are who we are, Irina." The tone in her voice had become as cold as a steel knife. "We are…who we need to be."

"You are not a killer," Irina said.

"So you say." The mischief had returned. "But it's all in the blood, you see. Everyone you ever killed, I killed too. Because all I ever was…was a tool." She tilted her head, smiling. "An alias."

"That's not true!" Irina insisted. 

"It is!" The confused desperation in her voice took everyone by surprise. "It was all a farce and we all went along with it. Just a little wind up toy you wanted to play with and then you went and got it broken!" She paused for a beat. "Or did you actually convince yourself that you loved me?"

Irina leaned forward, trying to make Sydney feel her words. "Sydney, I do love you-"

Sydney slapped her mother hard across the face; the sharpness reverberated against the shocked tension in the room.

"Stop lying, you disgusting bitch!" she screamed. "You, you treacherous whore, and your blood and deceit and sin. It was all just a fucking mirage!"

Sark moved to Sydney, worried. She started to shake uncontrollably. She covered her ears as if to stop the raging obscenities only she could hear. Her fists knotted themselves into her hair and as though she were prepared to tear it out in bloody clumps.

"So many noises," she moaned. She shut her eyes and began to sob. "God please just make it stop."

"Sydney?" Sark asked. He placed his hands over her tight fists and pulled them away from her scalp. "It's all right, it will be all right. Just let it go." She stared at Sark. For a moment she did not recognize him. The madness drained away from her from her eyes only to be replaced by a dangerous stillness. She turned back to her mother who was still reeling from the blow. Tenderly, she brushed the blood away from her lip. 

And then smiled cruelly at her. "All you loved was the illusion."

Irina managed to look her maniacal daughter in the eye. "Sydney, what you're doing is wrong." Sydney shrugged.

"What does that matter? All I wanted was a family. All I got was the lie and even that didn't last." The words were savage and moving, stabbing Vaughn in the heart. Irina's eyes filled.

"You have a family darling." Cuvee re-entered the room. He smirked at Jack. "Won't be long." He gestured to Sydney, who obediently went to him. He put his arm around her, pushing some hair off her face. His caresses infuriated Jack, who could only look on helpless.

"My girl," he said with oily affection. "My darling girl." He placed an indifferent kiss on her forehead. She received it coolly. "I've practically been a father to her." He said these words knowing they would be like arrows to his heart. "These few months, she has done such a good job of coming around to out point of view."

"And how's that?" Vaughn spoke up, his fury making him unable to stay silent. His heart was pumping and the blood flowed angry within his veins.

Cuvee stared at him. "What do you mean?"

"I mean just how did you manage to turn her? Because we all know that in the real world, she wouldn't touch you."

Cuvee's mouth twitched into a thin smile. "Good use of deduction agent. But why don't you ask her father? I …can't claim all the credit."

The implication was a slap to the face. Vaughn stared at Jack whose eyes widened with horrible understanding. 

"Phase two of Project Christmas," Jack whispered. "Mind control. Mnemosyne." 

Cuvee enjoyed Jack's anguish. "Could it be more perfectly ironic? Your daughter has fallen to the project in which you were one of the main operatives."

"You used the Mnemosyne treatments on my daughter?" Rage was flowed through Jack's voice.

"What's Mnemosyne?" Vaughn asked. Irina shook her head. "It's the most inhuman form of brainwashing to date. It was aborted early on in Project Christmas because of…side effects."

"Side effects." Jesus, he didn't want to know.

"Psychological trauma that resulted from the severity of the treatments, as well as mental and emotional damage."  Irina explained all of this, never taking her eyes off Cuvee. "The more the subject would resist…the more injuries they sustained."

Vaughn's eyes went back to Sydney. She was idly examining a strand of her hair, untroubled once more. It was too much…

"Syd," he whispered, miserably. She looked at him and narrowed her eyes, trying to put his face to in the part of her mind that would care. She didn't succeed and turned her head away, disinterested. 

Sark then came up behind her, wrapped his arms around her and rested his head against her hair. Vaughn bit down hard on the inside of his cheek, tasting blood.

"If it's any consolation," Cuvee said, practically sneering, "she fought. She tried to resist us with everything inside her…and then one day she just stopped. I actually think she's happier this way."

"Very happy," Sydney chirped. She nestled herself deeper into Sark's embrace. "It's all a matter of perspective," she added melodiously. 

She smiled one of her lovely, empty smiles once more before she tilted her head up at Sark. Making her eyes warm and undeniable to him she asked something that made Vaughn's heart stop cold.

"Which one do I get to play with?"


	3. clockwork

As You Were III: Clockwork

Rating: I guess in this installment it is slightly more R.

_"Which one do I get to play with?"_

It was amazing how one simple phrase could annihilate all rational thought in one's mind. Sydney's face was rosy with such mischievous innocence he was almost fooled by the serenity of her tone. Her words if taken out of context were perfectly innocuous. They were playful accompanied with the achingly familiar lilt in her voice and betrayed not a hint of malice. In her own distorted perception the rotunda was nothing more than a playground on a balmy spring day; this wasn't a hostage situation, it was a Sunday picnic. 

There was no doubt in Vaughn's mind or soul that no matter how this travesty played out, in Sydney's head she perceived herself to be completely innocent of what she was doing.

And this terrified him.

Vaughn found himself recalling a phrase from a book he read a few years back. It loomed in his memory now as he watched Sydney act her part.

_"Goodness comes from within…goodness is something chosen. When a man cannot choose, he ceases to be a man."_

The sentence ricocheted through his insides with a hollow ache.

Whether Sydney had been brainwashed and how it had happened didn't mean jack-squat. She just wasn't Sydney anymore. That significant part of her had ceased to exist. She may be less than a person, but that was all a matter of relativity.

And even though it was complete weakness on his part, he still sick with love for her. That very same passion was meaningless in whatever nightmare she had emerged from. 

And his heart broke for it.

Sark regarded her question with mock thoughtfulness. "Oh that's right. I promised you a toy, didn't I?" She nodded, somber. "Well then-"He spun her around in a long slow spin. "Pick one."

Sydney smiled blissfully as she twirled beneath his arm, hair whipping elfin-like around her face. In a vague way, it was almost like watching a train wreck. She stopped; his arm was still extended grasping her hand. She lifted her arm and pointed her finger in judgment.

"Bang," she whispered with a grin, quite pleased with her choice.

Even as Sark stabbed Vaughn in the neck with an injector gun and he glimpsed Sydney with an endlessly sunny expression of glee on her face and he knew that he had lost her forever…he still couldn't bring himself to stop loving her. It was weakness on his part.

As the room dissolved into black, his mind shifted in retrograde away from the Ops Center (from her) and his last thought was of the last day he saw her.

****

You have to remember he broke her heart first.

He was already waiting for her at the warehouse. It was a scorching hot day and he discarded his jacket and tie in favor in the cool staleness of the Mikrostorage. Yet somehow the heat did not leave him; it clung to his back and blue oxford like a sickness. He was all sticky with warmth…and shame at what he knew he had to do.

Today was the day he was going to break Sydney Bristow's heart and in the process tear out his own.

Consequently, today was also the last day he would see her as she was: hopeful, gentle, sane. But of course, there was no possible way he could have known that. If he did…well what's past is past is now the present.

All he heard was the sound of her footfall on the cold concrete and the dread that threatened to destroy his well-assembled speech.

She walked into the cage, her face glowing. He didn't know whether it was the heat or the fact that she was, plain and simple, ethereal. He forced himself to focus and ignore the sudden spark that flinted within him. But it was Syd- he knew her long enough to notice that where she walked, a light seemed to follow. 

At the same time, he noted that it was a possibility that the heat had made him delusional.

She was dressed down in a white T-shirt that barely touched the waist of her low slung jeans. He swallowed and looked at the ground, the safest region he could think of.

"Hey Vaughn," she greeted with her usual cadence. "So what's up? I sort of wasn't expecting your call. Not that I mind but-" her words stopped cold when he refused to meet her eyes. The effervescence melted out of her tone. "What's wrong?" Damn, was he that obvious?

He finally mustered up the courage to look at her face. That was his first mistake. The concern furrowing her brow was enough to make him wish that he had opted for drinking himself into a coma. For a few moments, he was tempted to just toss his speech and lie through gritted teeth. No, Syd nothing is wrong. Everything is the same as it ever was and I'm not about to cut myself up at the sight of you.

Well it's a little too late to change your mind now, Boy Scout. You started the fire and God help you if you should burn. 

Every line he practiced right before she arrived fell out of his head, leaving him speechless. There was a period of excruciating silence in which his vocal cords was rendered incapacitated and the only thing in his head was fuzzy, unhelpful static. Then he said the only thing that felt natural to say.

He exhaled and breathed "Jesus, why do you have to be so beautiful?" He couldn't contain the hint of misery in his inflection.

The frown on Sydney's forehead disappeared for a second before reappearing and deepening. She moved closer to him. That was the other mistake. The extreme humidity of the day had served to enhance her perfume. As soon as she came close enough, he caught a bewitching whiff of vanilla and jasmines. His mind became a languid cloud of need and want and all the naughty things he craved but couldn't have. Danger, chocolate, sin… he was reminded that Sydney Bristow was the embodiment of all that. 

Definitely not helping. He took a prudent step back. "What's wrong?" she repeated.

Turn around, his mind shrieked at her. Get out now. I'm this close to losing it as of the moment and will most likely do something I'll regret. It's best if you just leave now and maybe I'll be better tomorrow.

Of course he didn't say anything like that. That would've been letting his passion get the better of him for once and Heaven forbid that should happen. 

Instead he looked at her and said "I can't do this anymore."

She didn't have to ask what he was talking about. The simplicity of the statement was all that was needed to tear her heart out. "Vaughn." There was nothing beyond the impassioned way she uttered his name.

"I can't be your handler anymore." As though saying that would re-enforce his resolve. Instead the stricken expression on her face made him turn away. "I don't understand," she whispered.

He forced himself to explain although at this point an explanation wasn't going to do anybody one bit of good. 

"I though I could do this. I thought that I could look at you and act the part of the case officer, the company guy. It turns out that I can't. And I'm sorry for that Sydney. The truth is you deserve better than what I could give you."

"Vaughn, what are you talking about? Did my father say something to you? Because-"

He cut her off. "Your father didn't say anything. It's just that," he met her bewildered gaze. His voice wavered as he spoke. "I can't look at you without…" he let out a breath. "…without wanting you. In a way that compromises everything I learned from my father about being an officer. I can't sleep at night without dreaming of you. But I can't keep standing here, knowing that the only reason I'm allowed to be with you is the only thing in this world that's keeping us apart. I can't be here and pretend that it isn't destroying me. Because it is."

_And the sad, super-fucked up thing is that a part of me doesn't even mind._

She swallowed. "You're not the only one standing here Vaughn." He nodded, never leaving her eyes. "I know it's hard. It's not easy and it never will be. But we've managed so far- Vaughn please don't leave me!" The plaintiveness of her voice was gut-wrenching. There was nothing he wanted more than to pretend he hadn't confessed a damn thing or believe that in another world, with another set of situations, the two of them stood an actual chance of being together.

That world didn't exist. Not for them, anyways.

"The more I think about it the more I know. This isn't about how we feel but it is so easy to forget that when I'm with you. The closer I get to you the harder it is to remember what we're supposed to do."

The severity of the logic sank in. "I know," she breathed. She backed away from him. "So what-" 

"I've requested a new case officer for you." Her head jerked up at him, stunned. "It won't be long."

She stared at him, stunned at how unemotional he was. He had gotten better at compartmentalizing all those pesky emotions like love, despair, anger. Inside, annihilation was running rampant. He didn't dare show a flicker of any of that. 

"This doesn't change anything, you know," she told him. There was a note of defiance in her tone. "No matter what you do or say these feelings-" she practically spit out the word. "- are there. We could ignore it all we want but they don't fade and they don't die. Believe me, I know. I've tried to make it go away once. But it's inevitable. One day, I realized that these emotions are the very same ones I can't live without."

As she spoke, it was as if she had taken a shard of glass and twisted it within his heart. This was the closest that she had ever come to telling him how she felt about him and he was telling her to leave his life and never come back. It all seemed brutally unfair. 

"I-" he struggled for the words. "-I have to go now." 

"Vaughn," she pleaded. "Don't you love me?"

He swallowed the rock-hard lump that had formed in his throat. "Sydney, I love you so much that I can't remember who I was before I met you. That's the problem."

He straightened his face devoid of all emotion. From this moment on, it would be forever closed off to her. He grabbed his jacked and briefcase, preparing in the most professional of ways to leave her life. She watched all of this numb. Words echoed.

_"I can't remember…that's the problem." _

He was right at the threshold of the cave when he stopped. Without turning he told her "You'll be fine, Sydney. I believe in you." And then he walked away, the finality of it all dissolving all senses like acid.

He wasn't there to hear her final words.

"How do you believe in something that isn't even real Vaughn?"

*****

When he came to for the second time that night, he was strapped to one of those annoyingly uncomfortable plastic chairs, the kind that Agency sprung for because they were too cheap for upholstery. 

His wrists were tied to the armrests with duct tape as well as his legs. It appeared that he was in a room that was hidden away from viewing the rest of the rotunda. Strange that it never really occurred to him what this room was used for.

He was still drowsy from whatever the hell it was Sark used to drug him. Right now, it was taking everything he had to resist the temptation to pass out again. Opening his eyes only served to remind him that being unconscious was in so many ways better than waking to the nightmare that was reality.

Sydney and Sark were standing before him, patiently waiting for him to awaken. The amusement since had not left their faces. 

"Welcome back, sleepyhead," Sydney chirped. She reached over and wiped his brow. "We thought we'd lost you."

"Yeah, that really would've been a shame," Vaughn responded, dully. 

He looked around suddenly anxious to know if the other hostages were all right or if they were even alive.

"They're all right," Sydney told him, perceptively. "They're not happy but they could be in your position."

She turned to Sark with a winsome smile. "Thank you." She stood on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek. "He's the prettiest pet I ever had." Vaughn couldn't help flustering at such a degrading comment.

"Remember, we don't have a lot of time for dawdling. So try not to get too rough with him." 

She pouted. "Oh well, where's the fun in that?" He smiled at her lighthearted viciousness. She took a step back toward Vaughn and Sark made as if to leave. Her head snapped towards him. "What you don't want to watch?"

Sark looked back at her. "No thanks baby. You just have fun with your new toy. Try not to make too much of a mess."

And then he left.

Sydney studied Vaughn with an intentness that resembled fascination. She paced back and forth as though she didn't know what to do with him. She leaned forward to look him in the face and he felt her warm breath brush against his cheek. Gently, so gently, she stroked the contours of his cheek.

He found it all too easy to let all those old feelings come pouring back into him.

But if he was really being honest, those same emotions had never really left. 

"You have really pretty eyes," she complimented. "So green and sparkly."

God, she still smelled like vanilla and jasmine flowers. It was enough to drive his senses to the brink of lunacy.

He closed his eyes and tilted his head away from her. Still, her scent billowed around him like a smoke, suffocating him. He heard glass shatter and his eyes snapped open. Sydney had broken the monitor of a computer and fragments of glass lay strewn on the floor. She bent down and picked up a long, sharp shard. She tested its tip, and then looked back at her prisoner. "How sharp do you think this is?"

She straightened, grasping the piece of glass in her fist. "You think I don't remember you," she said, her voice deceptively soft. "But I do. Everything else is a little hazy but you're very clear." She traced the hard line of his clenched jaw before trailing her finger down and toying with the top button of his dress shirt. 

And then she began to undo his shirt, one button at a time, with a cunning tenderness. Vaughn's mind short-circuited and his mouth went dry. She seemed very unaware of what she was doing to him as she slid into his lap, pressing herself against him in a way that provoked his nerve endings to a thrilling ache.  Her slender fingers deftly made their way down. His head became a sluggish haze consisting of the blurry confusion of whether this was supposed to be a torture session. When she was finished she gently curled herself against him, almost as if she needed a hug. 

"I remember that you wanted me." She sat up and traced the outline of his collar bone with the glass. The delicate sensation of pain ran through him like a thread and he became agonizingly aware of the steel of his zipper. "You wanted me in all the ways you couldn't have me." She prodded him deeper with the glass, right against his jugular. "Unless I let you."

"Sydney," he whispered, hoarse and she looked at him, curious. "You can't do this."

"I am doing this," she told him, darkly. She lifted his under shirt, exposing him and traced the glass against his abs, applying pressure. "And this." He let out a hiss. A thin, red thread had appeared that would ultimately be his undoing.

He rolled his head back, trying to navigate his way through the tumble of sensations. It was too much and everything inside him was burning, sensation and emotion fused together like iron. And somewhere during the blaze in which control was now nothing more than a smoldering heap of ashes, something primitive had already taken hold. It had been so long since he had been this close to her, close enough to desire her touch, no matter how savage, with every atom of his being. As one side of him screamed out the perverseness of the entire scenario, another part couldn't help but long for more.

She pulled away. "You could have had me any time when we were together." She pushed it into his flesh and dragged down. He stifled himself against the sting. "You're stronger than I am and I wouldn't have put up that much of a fight. And even if I did…."

"I would never do a thing like that to you Sydney." He nearly growled out the words. "You meant more than that to me."

She laughed into the curve of his neck. The sensation sent shivers up and down his back. She lifted her head and whispered into his ear. 

"Maybe if you had paid a little more attention to me instead of your silly protocol and rules and morals and ethics…I would be in that chair instead of you." The vivid imagery, so sensual and still so cruel, was a tangle of molten heat in his lower belly. "All those sleepless nights you could've been touching me, instead of me all by my lonesome just touching my-" She gave a wicked grin as she felt him throb against her. The feral intimacy of her words burned him to his very core, so hot and unbearable and irresistible. His shame and desire had no boundaries when it came to her. That much had remained at least. 

When it came to Sydney Bristow, he was still, tragically, just a man. No one in this world would ever make that more painfully obvious to him than her. In the end she was his fatal flaw. If it turned out that she would tear him to shreds by the end of the night, Sydney would still be the one thing he could never bring himself to live without.

He opened his eyes and looked her hard in the eye. "Sydney, if you're going to kill me do it quick."

She cocked her head puzzled. "Now why on earth would I want to do that? If you were dead, that would make it a lot harder to torment you. What a funny thought." She dug her nails into his shoulders.

"Are you going to kill me?"

"Only if you're good," she breathed, foxily. Suddenly her face became cold. "All the same you killed me first."

He stared at her. "What?" She stood up and turned away from him. Her eyes became distant with an unseen memory. "I waited for you that night at the cliff. I waited for you and you never came." She turned back to look at him and her eyes were misty with tears. "Everything gets blurry after that."

"I don't understand. I never-"

Sydney put a finger to his lips, hushing him. "No, no. No, no, no. No more explanations. It's all a little too late for that now."

She set down her shard on the table beside him. Her eyes were still far away, well insulated from his pleas. Then they narrowed at him, shimmering with a clairvoyant radiance. 

"Sunrise is coming," she intoned. "There's going to be a judgment."

Vaughn could not begin to decipher the enigma of her phrase. It was as if she was seeing something still far down the path they were all treading. There was a nuance of reverent zeal in her voice that did nothing less than chill him.

Once more he tried to get through to her. "Sydney, I don't know if you can hear me or if you could possibly comprehend it. You're not well. Whatever happened to you-it was wrong. Evil. And I am so sorry that I couldn't stop it from happening. But you have to know that I never called you out on that night." He took a breath. "I love you, Syd. Somewhere inside of you, you have to understand that much." His voice grew steely. "And if I have to I will take you down and beat the sanity back into you."

She stared at him, growing pale at his words. She seemed to have lost her bearings for a minute and she seemed like nothing more than a little girl.

Then the ruthlessness returned to her face. "Yet each man kills the thing he loves," she quoted, clipped tone.

Suddenly, the dense air between them was broken by the sound of gunshots. Vaughn started but they failed to get the slightest reaction from Sydney who simply raised her head.

"Hmmm." She looked back at Vaughn, an absentminded smile on her face. "Well," she crooned. "Looks like Daddy's home."

Sark entered the room. For a minute, he took in the scene, frowning at Vaughn's torn shirt and Sydney's disheveled hair. "We have a visitor," he announced. He stepped aside, allowing the new player to enter.

Before Vaughn could guess what new disaster was gathering, a figure entered the room. All his wind was knocked out of him in a poisonous hiss.

"Ah," Arvin Sloane said. "You must be Michael Vaughn. Sydney has told me such wondrous things about you." He gave him a magnanimous smile. Sydney squealed and ran into his open arms. As he lavished attention on her, he wrapped an arm around Sark as though he were the ideal son.

From this angle, it appeared as though-but it wasn't possible. The concept was too nauseating to conceive of so it couldn't be true-

"I believe-" Sloane said with a triumphant smirk. "Mr. Vaughn, that you are well acquainted with my family."

To Be Continued

_Ok there is like one more part of this to go and I hope you like it so far. I'm so sorry that I've been lazy with the updates. Oh well. Send reviews!_

_Oh yeah just a note. The first quote "Goodness comes from within…" is from Anthony Burgess's novel **A Clockwork Orange a really weird novel and creepier movie. **_

_And __Sydney__'s quote "Yet each man kills the thing he loves" is from Oscar Wilde's poem "The Ballad of Reading Gaol." I think that's the title._


	4. telltale

As You Were IV: Tell-Tale

Sark made quick work of dragging the corpse of Gerard Cuvee out of the rotunda, leaving a trail of blood. The expression Cuvee had worn at his death registered shocked betrayal when he realized that he had been fatally duped at the hands of Arvin Sloane. No person in the operations center had regretted him being a casualty of his own faulty alliance with Sloane. The sight of an execution had impressed upon the captives their own tenuous position. 

Sark             abandoned the body in an empty corridor and returned, dusting his clothing as though he just wrapped up an important business deal. 

Together, they looked like a sick parody of the portrait-perfect family. Sloane in the middle, Sark to his left, and Sydney at his right hand. Together, they formed a horrifying triumvirate, sinister and smooth. 

"I suppose you're wondering why I planned this," Sloane said. 

Jack grimaced. "What I'm wondering involves the numerous agonizing ways I could kill you." Sydney giggled. Her fingers were still stained red with Vaughn's blood.

Sloane looked at her. "I was very upset to learn that you and Sydney had been double agents. Disappointed is probably a more apt term." He seemed to be genuinely sorry that they had to traverse down this particular path. 

"You should know Jack, that there was no one in this world that I had higher regard for than you and Sydney."

"I'm so sorry for your loss." Jack Bristow's sneer failed to move Sloane.

Sloane sighed. "I suppose what bothers me more is the fact that you managed to turn Sydney against me." He ignored the scorn in his former confidant's eyes. "For seven years, I was more of a father to her than you ever were. You knew that. And for those years, it seemed as though you were more than satisfied to delegate that title to me."

"Go to hell, Arvin. You stole her from me first. And now..." Sydney stood on her tiptoes, titillated. Her face had a rare expression of solemnity. 

"When I discovered that Sydney had been a mole, I won't lie I was devastated. I prayed that it wasn't true when I read the intel that Sark had given me. But in Project Christmas particularly the Mnemosyne treatments, God had answered my prayers."

Irina gave Sloane a withering stare. "You set all of this up. You really just wanted her reconditioned for your own pleasure and you knew Cuvee was capable of doing that. When you got what you wanted, you discarded him like a puppet."

It was only now that Sloane seemed to acknowledge Irina's presence. His face brightened. "Laura. It's been a long time. How have you been?" Her only response was the frosted fury on her face. 

He went on. "I knew that she was privy to intel through her work in the CIA, especially about covert operations she participated in and what information her dear parents had provided her. Intel that may one day be useful to me."

Sark let out a scornful laugh. "Sloane persuaded Cuvee to accept Sydney to experiment on and in exchange, he would be willing to share any and all intelligence she surrendered when it was over. And Cuvee fell for it."

Jack and Irina stared at Sydney, betrayal carved into their faces. Her elegant features were chiseled in glass as she gazed at them without remorse. 

"When we were finished, Sydney had been redeemed and I rejoiced. She was very willing to work along side Sark and I. She has become in every sense, my very own flesh and blood." He opened his arms toward Sydney who went to him like the dutiful daughter. Jack grounded his teeth and resisted the urge to look away.

Sydney pulled away from the embrace and looked at Sloane, imploring. "I'm not finished playing," she purred. "When can I go back to him?"

He affectionately brushed her hair off her face. "Soon, sweetheart. When we're finished, you may have as many toys as you want," he said, only too happy to indulge her sadism.

Weiss shot an anxious look at Jack. Was Vaughn still alive? There was no way to know. The tranquility on Sydney's face betrayed nothing of the ordeal she put him through. 

Sark suddenly spoke up. "Sir? I hate to interrupt this moving reunion but we are on a schedule." Sloane nodded in assent. 

"Well then by all means, let's proceed." His eyes went to Irina who had stiffened at his stare. In a few quick steps, Sark was at her side and roughly hoisting her to her feet. Irina grunted at the brutish manner that he handled her but her eyes still blazed with a defiant fire. 

"Just what do you plan on doing with us when all this is over?" Jack demanded. Sloane looked hard at him, staying silent. Jack gave a bitter smile which did nothing to disguise his fury. "Kill us then? Well, there go the days when I could say at least he never committed mass murder." He sneered. "I wonder what Emily would say if she knew what you were doing. Tell me, Arvin, if she is alive how would she react when she found out? You don't actually think you can keep this from her can you."

Sloane hissed "Jack, I suggest you keep your mouth shut about my personal affairs. You know nothing about them."

"I comprehend more than you think. I was there Arvin. I know how you felt about yourself at the end of the day. Empty, sickened at what you had let yourself become."

"Shut up."

Jack's voice rose. "I knew that in a way you always envied me. That's why you took such a shining to Sydney and why you felt the need to brainwash her just to get her to call you Dad. She was a symbol of something that you would never be able to accomplish with this thing that you call your existence."

Sloane gave Jack a spiteful smile. "That's where you're wrong Jack. Sydney is my greatest accomplishment. As you will come to see."

Jack slowly shook his head. "Even when you claim to love her as your own daughter, you still feel the need to manipulate her to the last. I would pity you if I didn't despise you so much."

Something flashed across Sloane's eyes. His jaw clenched and his fists tightened. The words had a sting of truth to it, no one would deny that. But no one had dared to voice it before this moment. In general it is so much easier just to hate than to understand why. Jack Bristow had the luxury of being able to do both.

Sloane turned away. "Let's go." The three of them began to leave with Irina in tow when Jack called out.

"When all is said and done, you've always been a disappointment, Arvin. And it's only a matter of time…until Emily realizes that."

The next sound was Sloane viciously backhanding Jack across the face. Jack faltered but did not fall over. Instead, he sat up again and looked at Sloane, contempt written all over his face. "I guess you proved me wrong. You're a real man, beating an unarmed hostage." Sloane whipped out his gun-the very same gun he used to execute Cuvee- and aimed at Jack's throat.

"Don't make me kill you in front of your own daughter Jack. I'm warning you."

A wail abruptly tore apart the stand-off in the room. Everyone stared in the direction of Sydney, who was standing away from them. Her eyes were as wide as saucers and she was trembling. 

She obviously did not like what she was seeing. As soon as Sloane had started to hit her true father something had come over her once glassy features. The coyness vanished and she had winced as though she felt a pinch of

Guilt? Empathy? Nobody could be sure but it was certain that she did feel something. An unpleasant little shock to her otherwise carefree system. She had begun to back away from the sudden jolt of violence as though the sight of it sickened her to her tender stomach. A sob escaped from her lips as an awful yet very familiar feeling pierced her skin and was now crawling beneath it, making her tingle and shudder.

She twisted her body away, an unforeseen sense of self-disgust drowning her until she was unable to hear anything.

Sydney lifted her head and gasped in astonishment. 

There it was clear as day.  Except it wasn't. It had been night but she remembered it all so clear. 

Oh God, how she remembered.

"Vaughn?" Sydney called out. She shivered against the chilly night air, made sharper by the ocean waves which crashed beneath her. 

It was a beautiful night. Despite the cold, the moon was plump and bright; the twilight peppered with miniscule points of light that were the stars. Despite the misery she experienced that afternoon with Vaughn, when she stared at those celestial forms she couldn't help but swell with hope and wonder. She had heard the old cliché of how looking at the heavens was a reminder of just how small we are in the whole scheme of things. But when she gazed at them, she dreamed.

She didn't have many friends as a child. In fact, she didn't have much of anybody. Mom was dead, Daddy didn't want her so what was she to do with herself? She was just a little girl. So some nights when the moon was full, nights like this one, she would climb to the roof of the house. There she would lie on her back and stare at the starry sky, with its galaxies and black holes and its endless mysteries.

There on that roof, she was never alone; she was just an extension of the stars which she adored. And she was complete.

Now, she had found a new thing to adore. Sydney cast another look around the bluffs for any trace of Vaughn. The note had simply asked her to meet her at this place, never bothering to specify a time. Typical of a man.

Another smile lighted her face when she remembered what Vaughn had done for her one night. It was the anniversary of the first day they had ever met and he remembered. It should have been against the protocol which he held so closely but that night, protocol had been the last thing on either of their minds.

They broke into the observatory where he had a picnic all laid out for her. She was never one to question her luck. She spent the night pointing out the constellations to him while he made up his own. She remembered how close he had held her to his body; close enough to feel his heart beat wildly in time with her own. She remembered how whenever she made a joke, he would laugh into her hair. 

They fell asleep together, entwined and content that nothing in this world or beyond it would ever tear them apart.      

Sydney sighed wistfully at the memory. She walked toward the edge of the precipice and stood there, letting the ocean breeze caress her face. Her lips began to shape the words of a poem her mother used to read her and had stayed with her ever since. 

"…and in my soul, I feel a lark singing: your voice," she murmured. She closed her eyes and let the crashing of the waves drown out any thought or emotion within her except what it felt to be free and safe.

All of a sudden, the reverie was shattered. Sydney felt a cloth being slapped across her mouth and the smell of chloroform filling her nostrils. "Don't struggle," an unfamiliar male voice with the unmistakable trace of thug in it said. 

Instinct kicked in and Sydney managed to put enough of a margin of distance between herself and her attacker to elbow him in the stomach. The man howled in pain and released her. She took him out with a single roundhouse kick to the face and then fled her head slightly woozy from the inhalation of the drug.

So she was unable to see the ambush that was awaiting her when she ran from the brink. A pair of arms grabbed her and she screamed as another set of hands was putting an injector gun to her neck. She heard the soft click and the world crawled away into darkness.

Sydney was thrown into a waiting van, ready to drive her away from life as she knew it. In the fading seconds in which she clings to consciousness, her eyes fluttered open. Sark was there too. His hands and feet were bound, a gag had been slapped over his mouth, and he was staring at Sydney with wild confusion as he lay on his stomach on the floor beside her.

"Sark," she murmured. "What…?" And then she passed out.

As she did, she wondered why Vaughn never went out to meet her that night.

"Oh God," she whispered, staring at the unfolding scene which no one else could see. Remnants of that which had been repressed for so long were suddenly brought to the surface and it was too much. Unwanted emotion flowed over her like a poison she drank before reading the warning label.

_Love. I knew what love was once. _She cried out as the pain of knowing what she had once been and had lost gouged itself into her core. All that mattered was that she couldn't feel the hurt and now here it was with a vengeance. 

She was pure once, wasn't she? Before becoming fodder for a lab experiment gone horribly right, she was a human being. And now where was that woman?

Here, with blood on her hands and a void where there should have been a soul. For a second, anguish wounded her while remorse nipped the back of her mind.

Sark sat Irina back on the ground before approaching Sydney who was still staring off into catatonic space. "Sydney? What's the matter-" He reached out a hand to touch her, to bring her back.

She jerked herself away, her face twisted with raw hate. "Don't touch me," she hissed. Sark looked as though she had slapped him in the face.

And she felt the hurt she inflicted on him as though she had said the words to herself. remorse overwhelmed her and she reached out to comfort him. Yet something pulled her away. 

Remorse. Fear. Hate. In this incarnation of her life, they were as taboo as love and hope. So why was she standing here, opening herself to all this useless emotion?

_Because she used to feel._

Sydney began to back away from Sark and all those vestiges of a life that had been abandoned to joyful despair. "At the end of the story, the heroine dies," she murmured. She let out a whimper as she looked around the rotunda. "What is this place? What have you done with her?"

Sark stared at her speechless. Her face contorted into tears for a woman who died in a lab somewhere and whose soul was condemned to wander in limbo. But finding awareness would not be discovering Heaven because she knew what waited for her if she should open that Pandora's Box. And self-punishment was an awful thing to live with. So it was a choice between mindless despair or to delight in her damnation.

Sydney erupted into tears and fled the operations center. Sloane looked after her irritated. "What the hell is wrong with her?"

Sark who had been looking after Sydney with grief in his eyes turned on Sloane. His voice was bitter with anger as he spit out "Leave her alone. You know she doesn't like it when you yell."

"She's being an immature brat and this is something which we don't have time for." 

Sark fumed at the insult. "You know what Sloane?" he said in a tone verging on mutiny. "Sometimes I really have to work to resist telling you to fuck off." Sloane stared hard at Sark. 

"See to your girl, Sark. See if you can't calm her down." To this suggestion, Sark gave a curt nod and was only too glad to leave.

"Sydney?" Sark called out. "Where are you?" He hoped she wasn't trying to play one of her hide and seek games. Last time he agreed to play he had to track her down throughout three counties. And Sloane's fuse was already shortening by the second.

"Syd?" He heard a sob come from around the corner. He followed it into a corridor and sure enough found Sydney curled up in small corner, sobbing violently. 

He swallowed back the ache he felt for her. He went to her and knelt beside her, wanting to comfort her yet being impotent to do so. He placed a hand on her knee and she looked up. Her face was red from weeping and dark strands of hair stuck to her damp cheeks. Tenderly, he wiped them away along with the tears. 

"What's wrong with me?" she asked, her voice not rising above a whisper. She yearned for some confirmation of what she was exactly and he himself did not know. 

 He did know that she was not alone during the mnemosyne treatments. Unlike her, he never put up a fight. 

"Nothing's wrong with you, baby. You're just not- you're just a little sick." He leaned forward. "Remember, that's why we're here. So we can get the ingredients for your medicine and soon you'll be as right as rain."

They didn't have a lot of time. He could tell Sydney was weakening each day. Last week, he found her hunched over the toilet coughing up blood. 

She looked into his eyes, searching for any type of deception. She found none. She smiled, painfully. Then the smile crumbled as her eyes widened with terror.

"It's the pounding," she whispered. Sark frowned, unable to interpret. "It's incessant," she added. "It never stops. It bleeds and throbs and at night I scream at it stop but it only pounds harder. Don't you hear it, Nathaniel? It's deafening." She leaned back, miserable.

"Sydney, there's no pounding. It must be all in your dreams."

She denied it with a feverish shake of her head. "No, it isn't." She pointed to her temple. "It's here. Where my soul used to live. And-" she took his hand and placed it on her chest. Beneath his palm, he felt the erratic pound of her- oh. 

"Do you see?" she whispered, her eyes filled with desperate sorrow. She pressed his hand harder against her. "Can you feel it?" Another sob. "It's the beating. It's the beating of that hideous heart!" She cried out the last words.

Edgar Allen Poe could not have framed it better. 

"She left it for me," Sydney went on. "As a reminder- a punishment. It was all that was left after the doctors ripped her soul out. And now it's trapped in me, wants to destroy me the way she was destroyed."

Sark swallowed the lump in his throat. "It won't stop," Sydney sobbed. She clutched him, staring wildly. "God, why won't it stop?"

Sark held her as she buried her face in his chest, soaking his suit. He stroked her hair, the terror she felt transcending her skin until he absorbed it as well. Terror was not an emotion he dealt well with. Nor was love but here they were, holding each other, and the love he felt for her was as terrifying as she was. 

From her tears, he heard a muffled "I'm sorry." She pulled away to stare into his face, which was still stained with tears. 

"For what?" The redness was starting lighten and the tears stopped flowing momentarily. "For being like this. I know you don't like it because it hurts you."

Suddenly she had all the eagerness of a child again. She cuddled up against him, nestling her head beneath his jaw. "And I never want to hurt you. I love you so much, Nathaniel." She pulled her head up and her face was brilliant in the earnestness it produced. "Because you're real. In this entire world, you are the only thing that is real to me."

He cupped her face in his hands and leaned his forehead against hers. How easy it was to forgive her insanity. "And you're the only thing in this world that I love, Sydney. Never forget that."

They sat there for a few moments. It was these flashes of sweetness that he lived for where she was sane enough to bestow it. They always ended too soon. 

She stood up, no trace of mourning on her face, except for a few gossamer streaks. "It's time," she said, resolution in her voice.

Sark still sat on the ground, looking up at her. The warmth was gone and a foggy dread had begun to pass over him. "This isn't going to end well is it?"

Sydney smiled at him, her eyes glittering as hard as diamonds and an ominous fire burned behind them.

"No," she purred, sweetly. She turned away. "It really won't."

tbc

_Hey so I know that I said I only had one more part to go but turns out I was lying. And also sorry if it turns out that this chapter doesn't make a lot of sense. I was sort of sleepy when I wrote it._


	5. revelations

As You Were V: Revelations

He had used the piece of glass Sydney used to torture him to free himself. It had been tedious and had eaten into his wrist where he cut through the duct tape. Now he crouched hidden in a cul de sac not more than a few yards from Sydney and…Nathaniel.

To her, he was Nathaniel. Not Sark and not the enemy. That title was now awarded to Vaughn along with her disdain and distrust.

He hardly felt the stinging cut on his flesh or acknowledged that his torso was covered in similar injuries. Their pain was insignificant compared to what she had said, with every fiber of her fanatical being. The affection in her voice…it sickened him beyond the telling of it.

_I love you, Nathaniel. Because you're real. In this entire world, you are the only thing that is real to me._

He wanted to believe that there was a time when that proclamation belonged to him and him alone. But madness and the unforeseen had taken that away.

As he bled, he felt those words ingrain themselves into his soul; to be repeated each night in the most bitter of his nightmares. And the pain of it all cut sharper than any blade in the world ever could.

The physical torment Sydney inflicted on him was nothing. Listening to her despicable affirmation of love to a man she would have killed had it been three months ago was the truest agony he had ever known. In whatever world she had now enraptured herself in, she had given herself to the enemy, mocking whatever grace of love she had known. Her heart, her soul, her mind, no matter how desecrated they were belonged to another man while she still unfairly held sway over his own. 

As he listened to her strangled confession, he wished that he had dug the glass just a little deeper into his wrists.

And he could tell himself that it was the lunatic speaking, but it hurt all the same because in her mind it was real. 

Sark loved her ardently, God damn him for it. From his solemn vow, he proved capable of love; a concept which Vaughn believed was a waste on a degenerate like him. But the intensity that caught his voice when he told her that she was the only thing in the world that he loved…it bounced around his head with devastating familiarity.

 It wasn't so long ago that he had said those exact words, with the same hopeless passion in his eyes and fevered ecstasy burning in his spirit. In another life, had he not been so foolish to have let her go in the first place. She was gone and so was the heart that he had so  freely surrendered to her, whose pulse she now detested as a crumbling testament to her lost humanity. 

 It was repulsive and wrong and twisted in so many ways…but Vaughn clearly understood the depth of Sark's devotion. It shimmered like water, clean, soft, and flecked with light but the reflection he saw was his broken image. He understood it because he had been there. 

They both loved her.

But he had lost her. He had witnessed his love scattered to oblivion where Sydney's sanity was probably waiting. 

And from that moment, he hated Sark with a fury he never dreamt himself capable of.

After a few minutes of letting his misery fester, Vaughn could hear voices carrying through the rotunda to where he was hidden.

Sloane was demanding that they leave immediately and that they had wasted enough time. Sark was once again pulling Irina to her feet; Sydney was forcing her father to stand as well. Lovely. Even during a bloody coup, they still managed to make it look like a family outing, military specs and all.

They exited the operations center but a few seconds later, Sark returned and planted what Vaughn assumed to be an incendiary device to the threshold. He matter of factly explained that this would track all their movements and that if any one tried to step out of or into the rotunda, it would set off an explosion with the force of two hundred pounds of C4. 

Before completely leaving the operations center, Sydney turned and tauntingly blew the captives a kiss. And then she disappeared behind the corridor.

As soon as they were gone, Vaughn scampered out of his hiding place and approached the captives. At the sound of his footfalls, Weiss turned and saw his friend.

"Mike!" The relief on his face faded in no time when he took in the torn and bloody rag that was once his best oxford shirt. "Jesus, Vaughn. What did Sydney do to you?"

Vaughn shook his head. "Doesn't matter. We have to find them." He quickly cut loose the bonds on his best friend and then went to free Kendall.

Kendall let out a ragged sigh of relief as soon as he was free. "The flower extract is located at a lab that fronts as a water storage facility."

Vaughn nodded. "I know where it's located."

Weiss said "I'll go with." Vaughn opened his mouth to protest but Weiss cut him off. "Listen, when you get there Jack and Irina may not be in any condition to help you out. And with Sydney being turned… you're gonna need all the help you can get." Vaughn was reluctant to agree but nonetheless said "Ok."

Kendall stood up. He caught sight of the bomb and told the two agents "That device Sark planted is pretty much what's keeping us at bay. We can't risk that he may have rigged some of the other exits as well." 

"Weiss and I can make it out through the air vents." Weiss gulped at the prospect of crawling through a maze of aluminum. "Uh, Mike is that our only option at this point?"

Vaughn ignored his question. "We'll gear up and I'll call the offices at the CIA headquarters to send someone from bomb squad over to defuse the bomb. Just sit tight until then."

Kendall snorted. "I hear that."

It had been a long drive to the lab. Sydney had gotten restless during the ride; Sark was too distracted to be any fun to talk to. Sloane was never any fun to talk to. Jack and Irina were just sitting in the backseat, very quiet and grave. Every now and then, her mother would stare at Sydney and then let out an insipid sob. It was all very inconvenient and boring.

When the ride was over, she had burst out of the car; a bird rushing from her cage. She twirled around and pleaded with Sark to dance with her. But he shook her off and told her that it wasn't time. She wheedled and pouted but when he continued to refuse she turned away in a huff. You're no fun, she told him, placing just the right amount of venom in her voice, just enough to make him feel bad. She loved it when they were all guilty and shame-faced on her account. They deserved to feel that way, after all the ridiculous grief they had put her through. 

It was a beautiful night. The moon hung high and luminous above her head like a gigantic pearl. In the fields of infinite stars, she saw everything that made the world turn on its axis. Fate, hope…destiny. In the stars and in her lunacy, the clouds had lifted and she saw her destiny. Her fate…her hope…none of it mattered because the world was up for grabs and nothing would be as it seemed. 

_If they suffer, let it be._

Sloane and Sark had brought her parents down a stairwell to the lab; Sark instructed her to stay put while they gained access to the flower. She lifted her arms above her head and nimbly hopped on her tiptoes like a ballet dancer. 

As she gazed at the intricate patterns in the diamond-studded sky, she gave a sweet smile of whimsy. In her mind's eyes, she saw a pair of jade-green eyes filled with pain flash against the dark then disappear. It was his heart that beat so undeniably in her chest as though it were her own.

As she traced the sparkling designs above her she whispered "He's coming."

When he emerged from the facility and saw her humming an unknown tune and rocking back and forth as she stared at the night sky. 

Sydney shut her eyes and savored the breeze that played across her flesh. Sark approached her and before he could say a word she murmured "Shhh." She raised her arms as though to conjure up an illusion. She stretched her fingers, yearning to grasp the stars that soared just beyond her reach. "Nathaniel, the stars are singing…la lala, la la la. The sea is gleaming and the breeze brings the scent of lemon and orange sprays. And in my soul I feel a lark singing: your voice."

 A shiver ran down his spine. He too shut his eyes and let the bittersweet music in her voice wash over him, raising goose bumps.

She opened her eyes and the light of the moon was reflected in her irises, deep and dazzling. Sometimes with the rage, it was easy to forget how tender she could be. 

 She spun around swiftly and wrapped her arms around his neck. He swept her up and whirled her around; laughing like the innocents they were convinced that they were. 

Madness ruled her; there was no question of that. But there was a method to her insanity. She saw things that others chose to blind themselves to; this always worked to her own psychotic advantage. An animal-like instinct shone in her eyes, giving her a prescient awareness in the moments she was lucid. He would glimpse a storm gathering behind them, ready to erupt but always at her control. 

"Nathaniel," she gasped. He couldn't help laughing at her exuberance. She began to sing, unable to keep her ecstasy contained; the notes of music wafted on the evening air with a grace it would never know again. "La, lalala, la. Starlight, star bright the first star I see tonight. Pretty stars. Pretty, pretty stars." She skipped away from him and did a pirouette, graceful. Eternally beautiful. He reached for her and they began to waltz to the 

music that existed only in her head.

The dancing came to a close as the ecstasy slowly melted out of their tempo. Sydney's eyes softened with concern. "Make them shine forever Nathaniel. I never want their radiance to leave me."

Sark smiled lovingly at her. "Anything for you, my darling. Anything else you want? The sun? The moon? The Holy Grail?"

Sydney beamed at him. She stood on her tiptoes and whispered in his ear "I want it all. The Heavens aren't near enough." She moved away from him facing the wind. A twilight breeze stirred the wisps of hair at her neck. She stood before him and the moonlight cast a ghostly light on her face. She gave the impression of an unearthly deity, whether goddess or demon, he had no idea. But just the sight of her made him more aware of the cold around him.

He would never admit it to anyone else but himself. He loved her just as much as he feared her. 

"Well, Jack Bristow managed to get us access to the preliminary lab but unfortunately the flower extract is under lock and key in a vault." Sark told this to his superior who had seated himself in a back room of the water storage facility. Irina and Jack were being held in an adjoining room. "I've fixed it with a software program that will crack the safe's combination but it will take a while."

Sloane didn't respond to this news. Sark frowned. "Sir?" He turned his head to Sark, questioning. "Are you all right? I would think that you would be a bit more excited. You are about to gain yet another Rambaldi artifact."

He shrugged as though at this point it no longer mattered. Sark groaned inwardly. Sloane was in one of his moods again. Sark seated himself on a nearby chair and waited for his employer to speak his mind.

And so he did. "Who do you think she is?" Sark's brow furrowed. 

"Sir?" "Who do you think she is, Sark?" Sark turned to Sloane, puzzled. Sloane was regarding him with a scrutiny that left him unsettled.

"She's Sydney," he replied. "What is there to know?"

Sloane stood up, pondering the answer. "She was Sydney. She was Sydney when we snatched her off the cliff that night. She was Sydney when she was fighting against her captors, to resist the Mnemosyne treatments." Sloan paused for a beat.

"This woman who I have adopted as my very own daughter…is not Sydney. Believe me I know the difference."

Sark narrowed his eyes as his blood grew cold. "What are you implying Arvin?"

 Sloane shook his head. "I imply nothing," he said in placation. HE gave a sigh. Sark heard the fatigue in his voice, which made him seem all the more human.

"Do you remember the days after Sydney finished her treatments?" Without waiting for a reply he went on. "She was like a child: confused, frightened, clingy. I seem to remember that during those times, she clung to you tenaciously and you responded to her façade of vulnerability."

"It was no façade," Sark objected. "She truly was lost. She had no one to go to. She needed someone to console her during her rough phases."

Sloane gave a grim nod. "And somewhere, you forgot you're objectivity; your duty to the cause. The reason we took her in the first place no longer mattered to you because you began to love her." To this quiet accusation, Sark had no reply. He glanced around the room, searching for an out.

He had no idea what Sloane was getting at; more than that he didn't want to know. The doubt he had been harboring for so long was swiftly gaining a voice. And the voice was eerily like Sydney's, laughing and uncontrolled. IT was silent whenever he chose to ignore it, and he chose to ignore it whenever he was with her. In the end, she was all that mattered to him.

Sloane was staring at the ground in contemplation. When he looked up at Sark, he was surprised to see apprehension within them. "Times have changed, haven't they? It's amazing to consider the growth Sydney had undergone under the right tutelage. She is still by all means mentally ill. But now…"

"Sir, about her illness," Sark started. Sloane cut him off.

"I know…Sydney's dying. Her sickness seems to have accelerated during the past weeks. It won't be long."

Sark pressed on. "Are you certain that this flower extract had the right properties to heal her? Rambaldi may be a genius, but doubt lingers that he may have been a lunatic as well." 

"Rambaldi knew what he was doing when he created all his artifacts. Each one is capable of serving many purposes…never fear, Sark. She will be healed as soon as we get what we need." Sloane offered him a warm, paternal smile which Sark found himself unable to return.

Faith was a faulty contingency plan, Sark thought to himself. Silently, he observed Sloane. So was trust.

"Sydney is no longer the child I initially thought her to be." Sloane sounded wistful, pride and sadness mingling in his tone. "Even in her psychotic state, she is still one of the sharpest minds I have yet to encounter. And still a danger adversary."

His young protégé stared at him sharply. "What's that supposed to mean?" he demanded.

Sloane met his challenge with a grim stare. "She's not who you perceive her to be. A puppy that needs to be pampered and protected. And in…changing her, I fear I may have awakened a darkness I could not have anticipated. An evil that had lain dormant within her all this time."

"She's insane," Sark said, terse. "Nothing more." A realization came over him filling him with a fear of what Sloane was possibly considering to do. "Arvin, she's not a threat to you, I swear."

 "Have you heard her speak of a Coming as of late?" Sark thought, his mind clouding with dark thought that spoke treason against that which he loved more than anything. "Yes. She rambles…"

"Sometimes, I see her. We lock eyes and she would say to me 'It's coming' and then smile in anticipation. I would question her and she would simply tell me to wait."

Sark shook his head. "I reiterate; she's insane. I don't see the need in putting up the alarms."

_The heavens are not near enough. I want it all. _Sark head began to spin as he struggled to hang on to his love as guidance. But doubt had begun to bleed into it, tainting it.

"In Rambaldi's manuscript, he spoke of the Deluge."

"What's that?" Sloane was silent before he continued. "A person. 'She who is born with the blood of deception running strong within her veins…of two allegiances…of she is who is the Destroyer."

What is the purpose of the Deluge?" Sark questioned, even though a dreadful knowledge told him that he didn't want to know.

"The cleansing fire come to purge men of their sin and delivering the world into a flood of darkness." Sark stared at Sloane, stunned. Sloane shrugged. "Rambaldi's words not mine."

"Wait. If I know the manuscript and I think I do the world already has one great Destroyer. Irina Derevko."

"I've considered that Sark. But perhaps Derevko's purpose was not to annihilate the world directly…but to bring into existence the one who would."

Fucking Rambaldi. How difficult could it be to speak in laymen? 

 He was so young at that moment. Sydney-she was so good, so fearless. How could she possibly…it couldn't be true. _My God, what did we do to her?_

"Sydney…she has so much rage within her. And a capacity for cruelty that far surpasses her mother. As she already demonstrated with Michael Vaughn, the man she loved. She wants the world to suffer, the way she feels she suffered. We created this…abomination." Sark flared at the term. "You may think you know…what she is. What she is capable of. But she is as unpredictable as a storm. You think she loves you?" Sloane gave a bitter laugh that felt like sandpaper on Sark's flesh.

 "She doesn't know the word. She may remember what it was like to be…and she may do a wonderful job of mimicking it. But it's all emptiness within her. She has no love; no remorse; no soul. Just an instinct."

_You think she loves you…she doesn't know the word_. But he loved her, deeply. No lie in the world would ever erase that fact but if it was built on deception on top of pretext…what would she do if she ever felt him to be an inconvenience? 

"I'm going to go check on the prisoners," Sark said, flatly. With doubt swirling around his thoughts and a fury at Sloane for planting that doubt, he turned to leave.

"Love is a blindness, Nathaniel. I hope I in time you will begin to see what's right in front of you." 

Sark stopped, frozen. His back was turned to Sloane; he could see that his shoulders were rising, up and down, as though his breathing were labored. And then he left.

Sloane was staring after Sark, surmising that he had found a problem in the form of his infatuation with Sydney. _I've got to hand it to the girl: her skill to manipulate men is unsurpassed. _He allowed himself to feel a swell of pride- hell, even love for the precious traitor. Yes, he did love her just as he would always love her. But he had quickly determined that she could not live beyond sunset the next day.

_I desire political anarchy and a new, more omnipotent regime. _Sloane smiled at the self-caricature, clearly Jack Bristow's perspective of his character. But his smile faded when his thoughts turned back to Sydney. _She wants…what does she want? _

He was so lost in his thoughts that he didn't hear the figure approach. 

"Love is weakness, father." Sloane turned. Sydney emerged from an alcove, hands clasped behind her back.

"Sydney, where on earth did you come from?" "I was just having a look around the campus; see if there were any stray dogs wandering." Sloane smiled at her colorful choice of words. "What were you saying about love?"

The expression in her face barely altered itself; it stayed blank yet piercing. "If I learned anything from Jack and Irina, it's that love is a disease. A poison, weakening us for others to conquer."

Said like a true romantic, Sloane thought. "I hoped, dear father that you were free of such delusions." Something about the way she said that, in that curiously haunting voice chilled him. He found her staring at his face, in a searching gaze. Searching for flaws.

Sloane smiled deprecatingly at her. "To each man, his own vice." She gracefully inclined her head.

"Indeed," she said, buoyantly. She smiled one of those bright smiles she usually only shared with Sark. "Men are full of vices. Flaws. Love and hate and so much more." Quietly, she added "And the world is such an awful place."

Sloane patted her shoulder. "Well, that's just the way human nature flows, my dear."

Sydney didn't answer. Instead she came before Sloane and knelt before him. Her eyes were shining. "Father, can I tell you something? A secret."

His interest was piqued. "What is it?"

Sydney's breath began to quicken with excitement and her eyes became bigger. "I see it all so clearly, father. I saw what Rambaldi had envisioned for the world." She spoke zealously, tempered with revelation. "It was amazing."

"What?" Sloane asked, curious despite himself.

She was becoming elated, a fanatic's joy pouring into her. "The deluge! The devastation." Her voice became hushed with exhilaration. "It's coming."

"Deluge," Sloane whispered.  How could she possibly have known about that? Did Sark tell her? No. From her demeanor, it appeared that this intel was the result of divine intervention. Or maybe something not as hallowed.

Sydney nodded, ecstatic, blooming with bliss. "It's going to save us all, father. We are lost, with our love and our deceit. But when it's over…we'll be free. We will find salvation…" Her lovely face shifted into a blank mask, incapable of pity. "In chaos. Among the ruins, a new existence. Another chance."

Sloane stared at her, struck cold at her words. _What are you, he thought._

In awe, she took Sloane's hands reverently. "In the coming days, you will be so proud of me. You'll stare down and see an angel come to earth."

"Sydney, what are you talking about?"

She smiled, serene. She could almost be mistaken for a celestial being with a pearly light around her head and an apocalypse on her mind. "Rambaldi said that there would come a flood to bring on the end." She smiled, vicious. "I am the flood. The catalyst to herald the redemption of all people."

"By wiping out the race of man?" It wasn't a question.

"By being its savior." She gave a soft smile. "I understand your fear. I was frightened once too. But it has been ordained." Her grip tightened. "Don't worry. I am going to save you all." Pause. "From yourselves, I will save you."

She bent forward, and gently kissed his cheek. He received it without feeling an ounce of genuine affection. To have affection she would have to have a soul. She embraced him.

"I love you father. And I know what has to be done." Sydney smiled. Grace had descended. Her conscience was silenced, sent to where her reason and humanity lay wasted like corpses. They would trouble her dreams no longer. She was at peace.

TBC

_*The line "…the sea is gleaming…your voice.." is from a poem called "A Story For Margarita" _


	6. elegy

As You Were VI: Elegy

_She was waiting for him, just as she had been that night._

_She was watching the waves break, the sea breeze making her hair fly from her face like wings. She must be cold; she was so pale._

_He could've stood there forever, watching her. But she perceived his closeness and turned._

_A smile lit her face, a true smile, with warmth and dimples. The one that made him weak and alive all at once._

_"I didn't think you'd come," she whispered, her voice nearly lost against the clamor._

_"How could I stay away?" Vaughn told her. A tear glistened in her eye before the wind blew it away. _

_She laughed, rich and sweet, rendering the biting cold to nothing. She resumed staring at the sea and he was eager to call her attention back._

_Before he could say a word, __Sydney__ glanced at him. "It's strange, Vaughn. But I can't remember…a time when I knew you and didn't love you."_

_His heart lodged itself into his throat making it impossible to return what he had been so desperate to tell her. The wind blew harder, howling against his ear._

_Sydney__ loved him. But love was such a fragile thing. It could easily be cracked or lost or shattered into a million glittering pieces, all through the maelstrom of one careless gesture. No longer a miracle but a weapon used to rip the faithless to pieces, bring them to their knees._

_ Vaughn saw __Sydney__ shaking her head. "Michael," she said with such wistful sadness. "When did you become so cynical? It doesn't suit you."_

_"This never happened," he told her. _

_Sydney__ smiled again. If he were blind in darkness, he would feel her by her smile alone; follow it as though it were the sun._

_"You're here. And I'm here. Does it matter why?" He shook his head, vehemently. She grasped his hand in her's. "Then can we just stay here?" He nodded, eager to please her. Few moments, they stood in an untouchable tranquility._

_But then she began to move away.  He clapped his other hand on her wrist and tried to pull her closer. "Where are you going?"_

_"Michael, it's time."_

_"Will you come back?" She slowly shook her head, sorrow deep in her eyes. Fear filled him with fierce possessiveness. She was so precious; he couldn't stand the thought of her leaving for the unknown, for the dark. He tugged her closer._

_"I'm not letting you go." She half-heartedly tried to pull her hand back but it was trapped in his firm grasp._

_"Michael, please let me go." Tears dewed her dark eyelashes. He was hurting her by keeping her here. But the instinct to keep her close was stronger than the need to frantically undo the harm he had caused her. "Michael, you know…you know you have to let me go."_

_He choked back a sob. "Sydney, I can never let you go," he told her, trembling. "I don't know why…I can't."_

_She took his face in her cold hands. He forced himself to look into her eyes, ashamed at his childish behavior. _

_"I know." Loving tenderness was etched in her graceful features. _

_"Please don't leave me."_

_Sydney slowly ran her thumb across his cheekbone, memorizing the sculpted contour of his face._

_"Michael, don't you know?" He didn't. "That's not how it works with us. Nothing in this world will ever keep us apart. Just spaces in time where…we won't be able to see each other."_

_She took his hand and pressed the palm against the flesh above her heart. It was beating, warm and rapid, in unison with his pulse. She gave a forlorn sigh._

_"One and the same. As long as my heart is beating I'll know you're out there somewhere. Distance and circumstance… they don't matter." the moonlight polished her skin   with an angelic glow. "I have to believe that we found something that could never be broken or corrupted. My soul will be safe with you because that's where it belongs." She became pleading. "You'll keep it warm while I'm gone. Won't you, Michael?"___

_He remembered his father's broken watch. He remembered that things, all things happen for a reason. This was no exception. _

_"It's like a jigsaw puzzle," Vaughn said, smiling weakly. She gave a small laugh and nodded._

_"Whatever our souls are made of, your's and mine are the same." The quote was from __Wuthering__Heights__. That was _Sydney___'s favorite novel._

_ She turned and looked at the lightening horizon. "__Sunrise__ is coming. I have to go."_

_"No, wait please." Deep down, he knew that when the sun rose he would lose sight of her forever._

_She saw his grief and gave him solace. "If I'm strong, it's only because you make me think I am; if I have hope, it's only because you gave it to me." There was such unspeakable sorrow but also the essence of strength that he loved about her. She wasn't afraid of anything anymore._

_But he was. In his bones, he felt the foreshadow of something inevitable. Her voice was no more than a whisper, the life draining as the sun began its ascent. Vaughn shut his eyes, unwilling to see her waste into air. _

_He felt her breath stir his cheek. Her lips met his in a chaste kiss. He could taste the lingering salt spray which breathed his entire being to life._

_"Vaughn," she sobbed. _

_His eyes snapped open. Light blinded him though it was still dark. And then, like a crash of thunder, it was over._

_Syd was standing too close to the edge of the overlook. Her gaze never left him, never flinched in her expression of love and mourning. She held her arms out as though preparing to take flight. He yelled. He rushed at her. Then her body fell away from the cliff, into the wild waters below; the sound of her descent vanished in the cascade of waves._

_And Michael Vaughn's heart ceased to beat-_

Sleep was torn away and Vaughn woke up with an abrupt start. He cast an anxious look around to get his bearings. He was in a van. Check. He was dressed in riot gear. Check. Sydney had completely lost her mind. Check and double check.

"You ok, Vaughn?" Weiss asked. He glanced at Vaughn as he drove the van.

Vaughn quickly regained his breath in order to answer the question. He leaned back in the passenger's seat.

"Yeah, I'm good."

Silence.

"You know, you said her name in your sleep."

More silence. Vaughn refused to meet his interrogating stare.

"Vaughn, who do you think she is?"

Vaughn shot a look at him. "What do you mean?" he responded, wearing his best poker face.  Weiss sighed.

"She's not Sydney anymore. You know that right?"

Vaughn bristled. "I'm not a moron, Eric. And if I was, I still have the scars to remind me."

"If we go in there with every intention of busting out Jack and Irina, chances are she's going to try and stop us." Vaughn got the drift of Weiss's inference.

"You want to know if I'm willing to kill her," Vaughn stated. Blunt, dull.

The silence lasted much longer this time.

"I need to know if you can do what you have to do," Weiss said, simply.

Vaughn stared at the scenery that passed by through the window. It was empty stretch of road everywhere. And all he saw was her face.

"I'll do what I have to do."

"Good to know." He paused. "Because when the moment comes and you feel you're not up to it-"

"If you try to hurt her-" his tone was hard with conviction. He stared at Weiss, cold. "I'll stop you."

Weiss nodded, grave. "Good to know," he repeated.

~~

Irina did not have to open her eyes to know that she was surrounded by darkness. She could feel it, cold and clammy against her skin. Oh, but she didn't mind. She was a night creature, raised by shadows. Darkness had long been a friend of hers. 

_Sydney__._

The thought of her daughter jolted her out of the semi-real state of mind that she had been floating in for what seemed like an eternity. The harsh bite of the ropes on her wrist felt more solid than anything she had experienced in a long time. She pulled herself upright. Jack lay not far; his eyes were open and he had the appearance of one who was drugged. But he wasn't.

"Jack," she whispered urgent. When he remained insensible, she nudged him hard with her foot. "Jack!" Finally, he turned to look at her with that terrible blank expression on his face. "Where is she?"

He turned his head and she followed his gaze. Sydney was curled in the darkest corner of the room, tucked away as though she belonged there. The cold, analyzing look in her eyes frightened Irina. In those dark pools was the blood stained reflection of every atrocity she had ever committed. She found herself withering away from the vicious creature her daughter had become.

And then there was the dream she had experienced right before she had roused herself from sleep. In it Sydney, standing against a deepening abyss surrounded by stars was telling her

_We are night creatures, mother. Shadows can't hurt us. We know when to hide from the harsh light of day._

And abruptly, it was the tangible Sydney's voice that spoke up from the empty halls of her reverie. 

"You should have killed me when you had the chance, Irina."

 There was no hint of gloating in her child's voice; only a sort of sad, bitter regret. Briefly, in an illumination that could only exist between mother and daughter, Irina saw…saw that there could have been better ways to end this. 

_You could have lived a beautiful, idle existence. Happy and free. Have all the things that were forbidden in their world_. 

But in truth they both knew; her daughter was doomed the moment she took her first breath. 

To Sydney, death would have been a mercy. 

Ambushed by forces which she had no control over, tangled in the web of others' illusive games. She was put on this earth with a purpose. All paths pointed to that inescapable destiny, that future where everything was stripped away to a spiraling nothingness. This was Sydney's fate. 

_And she knows,_ Irina thought, a horror, dulled but painful all the same welled up within her. _And in knowing it drove her to the brink of insanity._

"No, Sydney," Irina murmured. "You're my daughter. Nothing you do will ever change that."

"But I'm doomed," Sydney said with soft certainty.

Irina bowed her head. "Yes. I'm afraid you are." Sydney looked away, her chin trembling like a crying child's. Irina's heart was torn to pieces at the sight of her broken daughter, worn to a single frayed thread. 

"You. You abandoned me." Sydney sobbed, full of such utter hopelessness. "I believed your lies. I would believe them all over again. But you left. You left me to fend for myself. I was only a child mother."

She sobbed. "I'm so sorry, Sydney. I loved you so much." Her breath caught in her throat. "But I can't save you."

Sydney gave a grim nod of understanding. She unsheathed a knife she kept tucked in her boot and tossed it at her mother's feet. Irina stared at her puzzled. 

"Then save yourselves," Sydney told them, dead. 

For a moment, they didn't understand. And then it hit Irina. She met Sydney's shallow brown eyes, once so much like her own. 

_I've just given you a gift._

_And all you get from me is one._

Irina grasped the blade in her bound hands and it swiftly gnawed through ropes on her feet then hands.

She scrambled over to her husband who was still staring at Sydney in astonishment, unsure of what she was. She freed Jack before he was aware of it and yanked him to his feet, ready to drag him to the liberty.

"Why are you doing this?" Jack asked in a gravelly tone.

Sydney gave an indifferent shrug. "It must be a glitch in my programming. But I can't –" her eyes flared with an intense light. "I can't use you."

"Come with us," Jack urged. She scoffed. "Sydney please, the CIA will keep you safe, we'll help you."

"No one can help me now," Sydney interjected.

"Let us try!" 

The only reply was a stony glare.

"Sydney." Jack was desperate knowing that his pleas were futile against her stone. "Please come back with us."

"No," Sydney said firm but bone tired. And then in a soft tone resembling that of the sweet young woman she was "No honey. I can't. I would sooner go back to SD 6. You see Sloane – he  just broke my life."

"But all of you –  broke my heart." Jack paled at her sad truthful words.

Irina tugged on his sleeve and led him away, leaving Sydney in the dimness of the room. 

Abandoning her.

But before they had left that god – forsaken room, Sydney's voice lingered behind them.

"I hate you." Sydney stared at them, eyes gleaming with tears that could no longer be shed. "I love you. I will never forgive you for bringing me into this life." She turned her back. " Now get out of my sight."

Irina's jaw turned to steel as she stiffly acknowledged her daughter's command. But the tears were already flowing as she and Jack fled from her.

~*~

"I thought we needed a sacrifice."

Sydney turned to meet her guardian angel with bright hair. "Yes."

Sark stared at the spot where Irina had been bound a few moments before. "Then why let them go?"

"Because I didn't love them enough to hurt them," she told him, leaving no room for his doubt. Her eyes took on a knowing twinkle. "Don't worry, my love. Let them run. When the flood comes to fruition, there won't be a soul left with air to breathe."

Sark winced. Moving away from her embrace, he found himself staring at the wall at anything except her. Her, the adoration of his heart, the weakness of his soul, his ultimate damnation. 

"Are we evil, Sydney?" A raucous laugh was the only answer.

"Evil?" She tilted her head. "Why would you think that? No, Nathaniel. We're survivors. Doing what we have to do…may hurt. But when it's all over, we'll be the stronger for it. They –" she let out a soulfully distressed sigh. "They would never accept our love. They think its evil, an abomination. And they'll destroy it as willingly as they would destroy us. But when this is over. " She tilted his head and stared like she always did, so deeply into his eyes it felt like drowning and he couldn't breathe. "We can be together. Finally."

 "I can't kill for you again, Sydney. I love you but I can't --"

She took his shaking head in her cupped hands. "My darling boy," she whispered. "I would never make you do anything you didn't want to do."

He pulled away before he could lose his breath. Sydney felt a prickle of alarm at this uncharacteristic reluctance. A long lost emotion of helplessness and desertion once again invaded her heart. 

_He'll leave you – just as they did._

 Then a calculated calm swept over her.

Certain that his love for her blazed just as powerfully as it always did, Sydney strolled over to him. "Nathaniel." Sark met her eyes, unable to resist. 

Sydney let her eyes shimmer with sorrow and the sudden intake of breath on his part. She knew she looked exquisitely vulnerable when she cried. "Don't you love me anymore?" she whispered.

"You – you know I do."

"Then stay with me." A perfect crystal tear fell down at the exact right moment, giving her words vulnerable sincerity. The weight of that tear was all that was needed to break his resolution. 

And she knew she had won.

Stifling a smile for a performance she had flawlessly acted so many times before, her slender hands reached up to caress his face. He gazed at her, eyes blue with genuine tears. 

"Dear brother," she purred, shutting her eyes before he could glimpse the emptiness stirring within their sepia depths.

_A/N: Of that ending make what you will. I was in a weird mood._


End file.
